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Chap. XVI.
MUSEUM: AGE OF BRONZE.
243
Hartz Mountains, ghostly Knight of the Ardennes, Robin
Hood, Little John, and all such worthies, bow your heads.
Never did I behold five bugles such as these. The
cowhorn of the Polish serf may be longer; but I’ll back the
“ luurs ” of the Scandinavian against all rivals. They
are beautiful and graceful, reminding you of the legends
of romance; indeed, of everything unlike the present
utilitarian century. They are supposed to have, been
war-trumpets, by which the signal for attack was given.
If stretched out, they would be upwards of six feet in
length: the disk is adorned with circular bosses and ring
ornaments, and a bunch of bronze pendants is attached
to the end, near the mouthpiece. I had one of them
removed from its case for my inspection. When the
mouthpiece is inserted between the lips, the horn
traverses the shoulder and encircles the whole body. The
sound is somewhat dull, as may be expected. These
horns or some of them were discovered at Wedellsborg,
in the island of Funen.
Every day, at the hour of closing, all the objects of
gold are removed from the cabinets and concealed in
some secret fireproof place, unknown to any but the
attendants. This is a most prudent precaution, for in
1802 two horns of solid gold were stolen from the Kunst
cabinet of Christiansborg, by a jeweller named
Heidenreich, and were melted down before the robbery was
discovered. The robber was imprisoned for life, and a
long imprisonment it proved, for he lived to be eighty
years of age.
The circumstances attending the original finding of
these golden horns were singular. In the year 1639,
near Tonder, in Slesvig, a young peasant girl, by name
Katharina, as she was returning home one evening,
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